


One Thousand Truths and One Lie

by RoyEdIsMyAesthetic



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist (Anime 2003), Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Alcohol, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst and Humor, Bathing/Washing, Bathroom Sex, Bathtubs, Breakfast, Brotherhood, Child Abuse, Childhood, Coffee, Coffee Shops, Crying, Dancing, Domestic Bliss, Domestic Fluff, Domestic Violence, Dopplegangers, F/M, First Kiss, First Love, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Germany, Humor, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Knife Wounds, Loss of Parent(s), M/M, Marriage Proposal, Men Crying, Mild Language, Military Academy, Morning After, Open Relationships, Original Character(s), Past Character Death, Past Child Abuse, Past Domestic Violence, Past Relationship(s), Reflection, Scars, Separations, Shower Sex, Showers, Sleeping Together, Snow Day, Stranger Sex, Violence, Winter, Writing, breaking up, royed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-27
Updated: 2017-12-30
Packaged: 2018-09-27 04:38:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 22
Words: 12,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9965432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoyEdIsMyAesthetic/pseuds/RoyEdIsMyAesthetic
Summary: Roy and Ed are challenged to each write 500 truths about one another. 1000 in all.





	1. 12/1000 (Stanley)

It's ridiculously easy to fall in love with someone and end up not knowing them at all. By this, I mean it's easy to fall in love with someone, but not fall in love with them. Instead, you become infatuated with the person you want them to be- a creation of your own hopes and dreams.

Your mind tricks you into falling for the desirable rather than the tangible.

_A soft breath whistled from between ever so slightly parted lips, pink and chapped and sweet with the taste of morning coffee with extra sugar, just the way Edward liked it. An elbow was balanced atop a desk blanketed with a carpet of fallen snow, untouched, if not for the tracks of letters and words and numbers scribbled upon them, scrawled in ink, dark and angry like a raven's beak open... though the effect was not intentional._

_With chin causally set into the warm palm of a hand, unblinking liquid gold eyes stared out a nearby window, frost ferns soft orange in color like the sky painted with the sun's rising obscuring a drowsy Munich, Germany._

Truth came to me in a dream. And in this dream, it explained this peculiar phenomenon. But more importantly, it offered me a chance, or a challenge to be more precise, which if completed would bridge the gap between worlds and reunite me with whom I desire... that is, if the desired also returns the favor.

It's easy to fall in love with someone and end up not knowing them at all, and the question is, under these conditions, is it love at all?

And so, the toll of this rather odd endeavor is very simple actually. Write down five hundred truths about the desired. Each. Starting with first and foremost... number one.

1\. You're a bastard.

**1\. Your first truth is going to be that I'm a bastard, but you and I know you don't mean it. I love you too, Fullmetal.**

2\. The bastard is a proud collector of fancy fountain pens. The one with the red cap and the black... stem? Handle-y thing? Anyway, that one's named Stanley.

**2\. According to Fullmetal, Stanley has a rather colorful sex life.**

3\. Roy is allergic to green onions, the rain, basketball shorts, and good manners.

**4\. Edward isn't lactose intolerant. Although I did put milk in his coffee by accident once, and he gave me the heart attack of the century by pretending to have trouble breathing, and then proceeded to die on my kitchen floor.**

5\. Roy cried.

**5\. I slapped him.**

6\. The fucker slapped me.

 **6\. However I have to give him props for being very convincing. Edward is a good actor when he wants to be.**   


	2. 18/1000 (Eyesight)

_India ink eyes narrowed and squinted slightly, the reflection within the window at the passenger's side of the car copying Brigadier General Roy Mustang's moments like a shadow as he curiously turned his head this way and that._

_Roy quickly flicked his eyes over at the driver, Riza, to make sure that she wasn't looking before he quickly wet the palm of his hand with his tongue, and then used it to smooth down his rather unruly raven bangs._

7\. Roy wears contacts.

**7\. Before Ed left to that world... Germany... with Alphonse in tow, I saw him squinting an awful lot. I think he needs glasses.**

8\. Roy only wears his glasses in the comfort of his own home. The frames are rectangular, like the ones that Hughes used to wear when he was alive.

**8\. Edward hates my glasses.**

9\. Roy has neutral feelings toward his glasses. I don't like 'em though.

**9\. Edward doesn't like my glasses because they get in the way of surprise kisses on the lips when we're sitting side by side on the couch. If you want to make out against the wall of an empty hallway, you need to take them off and put them somewhere else, or else somebody's nose might get scratched.**


	3. 24/1000 (Central City Station)

_The soft rustling of the cotton bed sheets beneath hushed Edward and Felix quiet, sending a silence settling upon the confines of the dark Paris hotel room, the absence of sound light and airy like the settling of snowflakes upon the frosted windowpane in the corner. With skin bare and open to the elements, Felix lay on his back beneath Edward, his hands pinned at either side of his head, pressed against the sheets, a low moan escaping from the young brunette's mouth, and bright green eyes fluttering closed as Edward languidly left a trail of lingering kisses up the side of his neck, pausing at the racing pulse below the angled shadow of his jaw._

_Felix was a stranger._

_And this was how Edward treated strangers._

10\. Roy wouldn't touch me for a long while. In a sexual way or otherwise, despite the feelings we had for each other. He caved when I was sixteen. Roy deflowered me.

**10\. Ed is going to say that I deflowered him because he knows I don't care for the term.**

11\. Roy was open to having an open relationship. I suppose that's how it still is. We see whoever we want. We sleep with whoever we want.

**11\. Edward traveled a lot back in those days.**

12\. I think Roy suggested an open relationship because he was scared. And he was hoping that along the line, I'd find someone more... appropriate. For a lack of a better word.

**12\. Fullmetal told me straight out that he didn't want anyone else. When he said it, he was on the train, sticking his head out the open window a few minutes before departure. And I was on the platform with my gloved hands stuck into my pockets. And I was looking up at him. And he was looking down at me. And I don't know why that memory clung to me so tightly.**


	4. 36/1000 (Flick of a Switch)

_It was amber, a shade lighter than Alphonse's eyes- the liquor that poured out of the bottle, spilling out in a clean stream, nice and easy as it does down the throat of someone who's already had too much. But that night, Roy needed one more drink- one more gentle push... to send him toppling over the edge of the cliffs and breaking his neck on the rocks below._

_Unfeeling. All over in what seems to be an instant, but really, was something that had been coming for a really,_ really, _long time._

13\. When you're sad, you drink.

**13\. You don't like whiskey. I let you try some of my best, and you spat it right back out into the glass before washing your mouth out in the sink.**

14\. Sometimes you wish that I'd get angry.

**14\. But you don't. You just keep it locked up. And you sulk around.**

15\. I've seen you angry though. I've seen you goddamn angry- when you're angry, it's terrifying. And it's quick like the flick of a switch or the snap of your fingers.

**15\. You know that Maes Hughes was a good man. And later on, you knew that while in investigations, he made a lot of enemies.**

16\. Somebody targeted Miss Gracia and Elicia a while after we started... we seeing each other. And not only that, but a couple of the guys around Central Command who didn't know Hughes, were talking some shit about him. And it was bad. I didn't know, and earlier that morning I was trying to tick you off and get a bit of payback for something that didn't even really matter. It was stupid. It was all my fault.

**16\. I saw you in the hallway. You were trying to get a reaction out of me. And you got one.**

17\. You took the fabric of my shirt collar in your clenched fist and you shoved me up against a wall so hard, and so fast, that the back of my head left a dent in the drywall.

**17\. You have a small scar at the back of your head. You left blood behind.**

18\. You were so sorry. You kept on saying it over and over again, and for you, it just wasn't enough.

**18\. You felt betrayed. But you forgave me. Although... we didn't talk for the next week and a half.**


	5. 44/1000 (Angel Wings)

_With amused smiles spread across their faces, Ed and Al made a run for it as a loud pop and fizz disturbed the crisp and stagnant morning air. Angry crimson and orange sparks shot out from the bottom of the miniature rocket they had set up in the middle of a barren field in Nuremberg, and soon enough, with a hum and a sharp whistle, it blasted off into the hazy gray sky, lighting it up like fireworks when the hands of the clock tick twelve on New Year's Day._

19\. You broke your arm when you were six. You were visiting a family friend in Youswell, and you jumped off of a fire escape because one of the neighbourhood kids gave you a design for a transmutation circle. And they said it would give you the ability to fly.

**19\. Ed broke his left ring finger when he slipped on one of the rocks at the edge a brook in Resembool. He was seven. Or eight. He has a tiny scar going along that knuckle.**

20\. Roy has two long, white scars running side by side down the center of his back.

**20\. I overheard Edward telling Alphonse about the scars going down my back. He said that they look ugly, but there wasn’t any… _bite_ to that statement. It’s a fact.**

21\. If an angel had its wings ripped off, and you gave it about ten years to heal… I think that’s what it would look like. That isn’t a truth about Roy really… but Roy does know that I think this. That’s a truth about Roy.

**21\. Ed learned about how I got the scars the night we made love for about the fourth time.**

22\. Roy was sleeping with a male upperclassman in the academy. People found out. People didn’t like it. Roy got cornered behind the showers that evening. Roy got carved up by a nice midnight black bowie knife.

**22\. Edward looked at me with pity in his eyes. I didn’t like it. And so I made it stop.**


	6. 56/1000 (Social Functions)

_Roy always had a thing for blondes. And so he didn't find it to be too much of a surprise when he blinked his eyes open in the early morning light, and laying there in bed with him was a woman with flowing platinum blonde hair, sleeping with her bare back turned. It was an ugly blonde- more than several shades too light for his taste._

_Roy didn't remember anything from the night before._

_He silently turned onto his side, and went back to sleep._

23\. Roy gets really quiet sometimes.

**23\. Fullmetal gets really quiet sometimes. I don't know if people realize that- how quiet he can get. Occasionally he just... steps back. And he feels content in doing do.**

24\. Roy doesn't mingle. Unless he has to at a formal function or something. Or if it's with Hughes.

**24\. Edward doesn't like formal functions unless there's punch. He gets his fun out of spiking it with liquor stolen from my cupboards.**

25\. Roy can waltz well.

**25\. Fullmetal doesn't like slow dancing. He likes... lively, upbeat dancing. That you can do around people. In clubs. Or bars.**

26\. Roy usually just stands there like some creepy voyeur with a whiskey in hand, and watches me dance.

**26\. He does this thing where his combs his fingers back through his hair and lets his hand... rest there? Sorta at the top of his head? He looks at you with those blazing golden eyes from the side between that sort of triangular frame his arm makes as he swirls his hips around.**

27\. Roy likes it if I smile and lick my lips while I do it.

**27\. Fullmetal is all hips, and hands, and big hair.**

28\. If I get Mustang drunk enough, and on the dance floor, we can sometimes work ourselves into a hot grind.

**28\. What can I say? Fullmetal has a nice body. And he knows how to work it.  
**


	7. 72/1000 (Felix, Hughes, and Julia)

_Having been left upon the nightstand for hours on end, the tiny silver band was cool to the touch. Sitting naked upon the edge of the bed in the dark hotel room, Edward curiously toyed with the engagement ring before looking up, watching for a moment as a standing Felix did up the buttons of his collared shirt. When the young man was done, Edward silently tossed him the ring, and it was easily caught in cupped hands._

29\. Roy lost his virginity on his 19th birthday.

**29\. Ed received his first kiss when he was four. He was kissed by at school by a girl named Julia. He forgot her last name.**

30\. Roy lost his virginity to a man named Felix.

**30\. Ed likes to be top.**

31\. Roy likes to be top. But he equally likes to be bottom. I like seeing him that sort... vulnerable position. I like it when he puts his hands on my back, I like it when I hear him moan beneath me, I like to see the expression on his face change. Just before my name drips off of his tongue, I like to dip down and catch it with my mouth.

**31\. Edward doesn't like to be on the giving, or receiving, end of oral sex. You'll get a reaction out of him, but he doesn't... like the concept...**

32\. He was first kissed by Hughes. Roy made it clear that he didn't return Hughes' feelings. But they stayed friends, and I think it turned out for the best.

**32\. Fullmetal went on a date with Winry Rockbell once. It didn't work out, but it was for the best.**

33\. Mustang is a very gentle lover. He always stops and makes sure that you're alright.

**33\. Ed hates it when I stop and make sure he's alright- it pisses him off sometimes. But he understands that it's something I feel like I need to do.**

34\. Roy slept with Felix because he loved Felix.

**34\. Ed and I joked about getting married once. Ed said that he'd take my last name, and it sort of threw me for a loop.**

35\. Felix was Roy's first boyfriend. Roy thought he had a future with Felix.

**35\. I was Ed's first boyfriend.**

36\. But what Roy didn't know was that Felix was engaged to be married to someone else. A woman. My Felix is also engaged to be married to a woman, which just shows that Felix messes things up wherever he goes.

**36\. Fullmetal wouldn't use me like that.**

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you have something that you want to know about Roy and Ed, leave a comment. I need ideas. A lot of ideas.  
> 
> On another note, this odd fanfic was inspired by a conversation that my boyfriend and I had about two or three months after we started dating. We were walking home, and this man turned to me and was like, "Vaughan, you are a mystery to me. I don't know a lot about you- what's your favorite color?" And I said my favorite color was blue, but I like black although that isn't actually a color, and he said that he sorta knew that already because I always wear black... and all of this goes to show that just by observation, you know more about people than you may think.)


	8. 92/1000 (Bed Sheets)

_The open-handed smack was as sharp as a thunderclap, sending needles prickling the skin at Ed’s cheek where a red welt was left behind, a dark bruising already forming just beneath his cheekbone where Felix’s fiancee’s engagement ring had hit._

_With mouth open and forming a surprised ‘O’, Edward staggered back with golden eyes wide, putting a hand to the burning skin at his face._

37\. At first, Al wasn’t exactly thrilled by the idea of Roy and I. But he was happy that I was happy. And that in turn made Roy happy too.

**37\. Edward always slept over at my place. It was never the other way around.**

38\. Roy felt left out in not seeing where I spend my time in the dorms. But it wasn’t what I would call home. Roy’s place- _that_ was a home.

**38\. Ed always slept on the left side of my bed. I slept on the right.**

39\. Roy takes the duvet covers. He gets cold.

**39\. Ed takes the sheets. He gets warm.**

40\. Roy hugs his pillows in his sleep. I feel left out.

**40\. Fullmetal tosses and turns in his sleep. The pillows end up on the floor.**

41\. Roy has nightmares sometimes. Afterward, he gets out of bed, takes a sleeping pill, comes back, and holds me until we both fall asleep.

**41\. Fullmetal has nightmares sometimes. He screams. He wakes up screaming and continues to do so at the top of his lungs, as if he’s still in the nightmare itself and can’t tell the difference. Sometimes… he _doesn’t_ wake up.**

42\. It scares Roy when I scream in my sleep.

**42\. When the screaming stops, and Fullmetal comes to his senses, he feels guilty. And he apologizes, but he shouldn’t have to.**

43\. Roy has post traumatic stress disorder.

**43\. Fullmetal has post traumatic stress disorder. But somehow, everything seems alright by morning.**

44\. Roy always wakes up first. He lets me sleep.

**44\. Ed looks cute when he sleeps.**

45\. Roy likes to make breakfast. He can make a mean omelet.

**45\. Ed can toast a mean toast.**

46\. Roy has a secret recipe.

**46\. I told Ed that it’s a secret recipe, and he thinks that it’s a secret recipe... but it’s a plain old spinach and bacon omelet. Four eggs, three tablespoons of half and half, salt and pepper, a half cup of spinach, a half cup of cherry tomatoes, six slices of bacon, and half a cup of shredded cheese. Served with hash browns and a tall glass of orange juice- that’s the way to a man’s heart.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter goes out to Crim for providing the idea about bed sheets and morning habits. Thanks!


	9. 104/1000 (Meaningless Things Mostly)

_The thin paper wrapping of a band aid made a crinkling sound as it was torn away and then discarded in the nearby trash bin. The platinum blonde from a couple days before, now dressed in blue military-issued uniform, stood in front of Roy’s desk with her right index finger extended out toward him. In the silence of the empty office, large, but agile hands worked at bandaging the paper cut on the pad of her finger, a heated blush spreading across her cheeks while Roy wasn’t looking._

47\. Roy has large hands. Once, we were sitting out in the cold, and he put one hand right on top of my head. And it was warm. I don’t know why I remember that...

**47\. Edward’s fingers click when they move. The automail ones I mean. His gloves muffle the sound.**

48\. Roy has nice shoulders. They’re broad and good for resting hands on when kissing.

**48\. Fullmetal’s automail covers the entirety of his right shoulder. He has two screws going through his collarbone. It looks painful.**

49\. Roy has a tattoo on his right ankle. It’s tiny and it’s something written in Ishvalan script. I never asked what it said.

**49\. Ed scratches things into his automail when he’s bored. Words. Pictures. Meaningless things mostly.**

50\. Roy likes to kiss around the ports of my automail. He pays my real limbs, and artificial ones, equal attention.

**50\. Edward isn’t ashamed or shy about his automail or the scars that come from it.**

51\. When lovemaking, Roy is very careful with my automail at first. As if he’s afraid to break me.

**51\. Fullmetal isn’t ashamed of his automail when he’s around me because he’s been through this before.**

52\. Roy knows about Jessie.

**52\. Fullmetal got drunk once. And he told me about Jessie. He told me about her, and I think... I think that people come with a lot more baggage than you think. It makes me angry to think that there was someone else in Ed’s life who kissed his lips. And held his hand. And loved him as I love him. But I think that makes Fullmetal all the more human- I believe that at some point in our lives, we’ll all have a Jessie- someone sweet who arrived at the wrong time and ended up as nothing more than a name. And our Felix's, who arrived at the right time and left behind long and painful stories to tell.  
**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, if you have anything you want to know about Roy and Ed's personal lives, leave a comment! I need ideas...


	10. 118/1000 (Clean)

_Edward stood alone in the shower, the icy coolness radiating from the water-slick tile on the wall to his side offering welcome relief to his bruised cheek. As delicate crystal beads rained down from the shower head above, he closed his golden eyes and let out a tired, but quiet sigh, letting a contemplative silence wash over him._

53\. Roy takes long, hot showers at night.

**53\. Ed takes cold, short ones in the morning.**

54\. Roy soaks in the tub sometimes.

**54\. Fullmetal likes to climb in with me when I soak in the tub sometimes.**

55\. Roy likes bubble baths. We make bubble beards.

**55\. Ed likes bubble baths, but he likes me more. We get clean, only to dry off and get un-clean again.**

56\. After getting un-clean, Roy and I like to shower together. The fact about Roy here is that he's always the one to suggest it. I don't know why- it just works out that way.

**56\. Ed likes to wash my back. And then he likes to put his hands on my hips and pull me close, and then we just quietly stand there under the water, listening to it fall... Our breathing...**

57\. Roy likes to wash my hair. He likes how it looks against my back when it's wet and full of suds.

**57\. From behind, Ed likes to kiss my shoulder blades. I don't know why, but it feels awful nice. I close my eyes. And he continues. The right. Lips slowly ghosting over to the left. The middle of my back. The back of my neck.**

58\. Roy turns around. He dips his head down. He kisses me. We taste each other on our tongues- our fingers weave themselves through each other's hair. The ceramic tile on my back is ice cold compared to the heat between us. I get goosebumps.

**58\. Fullmetal makes the argument that we're already in the shower, so why not go for a second round?**

59\. Roy caves. He pins my wrists to the wall, and with our bodies flush together, he buries his face into the crook of my neck as our breathing grows heavy.

**59\. This doesn't happen very often... this _didn't_ happen very often. And I think that's where the silence came from. We didn't see each other very much with my working and Ed traveling, so any time spent together was something really special. That's why I remember it so clearly. And that's why it was so sad. The truth here is that it made Ed sad. And I could tell.   **


	11. 140/1000 (Coffee)

_The rubber heels of dusty black combat boots beat hard against the cold tile floor of one of Central Command’s many narrow hallways, which was lit by a long row of floor to ceiling windows. A warm yellow glow fell upon the young major, her long platinum blonde hair swishing and trailing behind her, air rushing past her ears as she sprinted after Brigadier General Roy Mustang._

60\. It began with a sound. I had left Roy’s office and I was walking down the hall. A few moments later, I heard footfall behind me, and sure enough it was Roy. And he was running after me. I never saw the man run like that before. There was never a need for him to- it’s as if the world just falls into his lap whenever it’s summoned...

**60\. Fullmetal was holding a stack of paperwork in his hands- something about his residency in the dorms next year. He held them to his chest as he silently turned around. Curious. Blinking with surprise. Because he knew something was… _different_.**

61\. Roy stopped in front of me. He asked me out to coffee. Not as a subordinate. Not as a friend. Not as a date. Just... coffee.

**61\. At first, Ed thought that I was asking he and Al out for coffee. But then I made myself clear. And although he was still a bit… well, a bit caught off guard… he said yes.**

62\. I’ll always wonder what would have happened if I didn’t say yes. But I did. And it made Roy smile. He was relieved, and nervous, and I found it to be oddly endearing.

**62\. Later on, Ed said that he felt good about it. Like it was a natural development in our relationship.**

63\. There were stolen glances. Roy stole glances.

**63\. There were blushes. Ed blushed.**

64\. There were smiles exchanged. Roy would smile at me briefly, and I would get this odd sort of feeling. This excited sort of feeling that comes when two people smile, and each of them know that they share a secret. And it’s theirs and theirs alone. Whatever that secret is, it’s a gift. And it’s one of a kind.

**64\. Ed was asked out for coffee. The next Sunday. 10:30. Espresso Express on the corner of First and Jones Street.**

65\. Roy likes espressos.

**65\. Ed really doesn’t care for coffee. But when he has it, he takes it black. Maybe he’ll add sugar, depending on how he’s feeling.**

66\. Roy likes coffee in a teacup. Balanced atop a saucer. It makes him feel fancy.

**66\. Ed likes coffee in a mug. When he’s really really angry, he likes it down the front of my shirt.**

67\. The spoon is for your sugar.

**67\. The spoon is for balancing on the tip of your nose.**

68\. The spoon is for you to chuckle at.

**68\. The spoon is for throwing at my face. After being thrown at my face, it’s picked up off of the ground and used to beat me with, due to some comment that was found offensive, but wasn’t meant to offend in the first place.**

69\. Roy grabbed the spoon. And it went flying out of his hand and through the air, and it whacked the barista square in the face.

**69\. Fullmetal runs slower than I do.**

70\. Roy and I ran for it. And then laughing, he pulled me into an alleyway. And we laughed some more at something that wasn’t really funny in the first place.

**70\. For our first date, I asked Ed out to coffee. The day we went out for coffee, the day I was talking about, was months later. I went to Espresso Express on the corner of First and Jones Street on a Sunday. 10:30. I waited there for two hours. And Ed didn’t show up.**

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're more than one tenth of the way done with the story! *breaks down into sobs* So much left...


	12. 162/1000 (Heart)

_The Silver Alchemist twirled a lock of platinum blonde hair around her finger, smiling softly from across the cafe table as Roy sipped his steaming espresso. The Flame Alchemist’s obsidian eyes weren’t on Jessie however. They stared through her and at the painting hanging on a wall behind which depicted a rural scene, with rolling hills of green and endless azure skies._

_Resembool._

71\. Roy was a rather sickly baby boy born to a young mother in South Ammyr- a small back country town that sits directly on the border between Eastern and Northern Amestris.

**71\. Ed was a strong baby boy born to an older, but still young, mother in Resembool- a small farming town in southeastern Amestris.**

72\. Penelope Mustang had Roy when she was fourteen years old.

**72\. Trisha Elric had Ed when she was twenty one years old.**

73\. Roy had a younger sister. Marie was stillborn.

**73\. Fullmetal was going to have a younger sister. Trisha had a miscarriage. She named her Nina.**

74\. Roy’s father was present. He was a Xinganese immigrant, and was an alcoholic with a fiery temper. He beat his young wife. He beat his infant child. And he’d put cigarettes out on their thighs.

**74\. Ed’s father was absent.**

75\. When Roy’s parents died in a car crash, he was too young to really understand what had happened. He cried a little.

**75\. When Ed’s mother died, he was old enough to understand what had happened. He also cried a little. When Alphonse wasn’t around, he cried a lot. When his body grew tired of crying, he didn’t cry again for a very long time.**

76\. When Mustang was five, he wandered the streets and kicked around metal cans in alleyways. He fed stray dogs. He poked the sleeping bums in the park with sticks. When, and if, they woke up, he’d make a run for it. He’d shoplift gum from the corner store and then sell it to others for more money than it was worth.

**76\. When he was five, Fullmetal spent his free time romping through the woods. He collected beetles and slugs in mason jars. He trapped rabbits in old apple crates only to set them free again. He waded through streams with the legs of his pants rolled up to his knees. He wore turtles as hats. He tried to catch fish with his bare hands, but was never successful.**

77\. When Roy was seven, he slept soundly in one of the many beds at Central General Hospital with an oxygen mask over his mouth and nose. It was his third extended visit there in the past two months.

**77\. Fullmetal was born with a good heart.**

78\. Roy was born with a bad one. And while in the hospital, he associated himself with a bad people. For example, the bespectacled, blond haired, golden eyed, bearded alchemist in the bed next to him who was in for a broken leg. The injury was an accident that had to do with a potato, a toaster, and five left socks.

**78\. When Ed joined the military, he submitted faked medical records.**

79\. When Roy joined the military, he submitted faked medical records. Roy took great lengths to continue receiving medication for his heart problems.

**79\. I didn’t tell Ed about my heart problems. He didn’t know.**

80\. One evening, I was sitting on Roy’s couch, reading a book. Roy was in the kitchen. And I heard him hit the floor. The plate he had been holding shattered.

**80\. Ed called my name and ran over. At the time, I wasn’t aware that he had moved from the living room. It was dark.**

81\. Roy collapsed and he started convulsing right then and there on his kitchen floor. It was over in a few seconds, but I was so scared, and I didn’t know what to do. And when I realized he wasn’t breathing, I ran back to the living room and phoned for an ambulance.

 **81\. Ed went back to my side and held me in his arms until the paramedics came. He thought he was going to lose me. He cried a little. He wasn’t allowed to ride with me in the ambulance due to his age and the secrecy of our relationship. When the medical team left, he cried a lot. When his body grew tired of crying, he didn’t cry again for a very long time. I think about that a lot- Ed having to stand there alone in the kitchen. Afraid. And alone. It’s something that I don’t want to repeat. That’s why I tell Fullmetal so much, or why I _told_ him so much, rather. If you know what happened, if you’re aware of past mistakes… then there’s a small chance that they’ll repeat.  **  

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had to put some thought into this chapter, but it was one of my favorites. I dunno why. Roy's childhood is a reference to my first Fullmetal Alchemist fanfic 'The Spirit Manifest'. Another change of topic- suggestions! Give me suggestions for RoyEd 'truths' ya wanna know!


	13. 196/1000 (Because He Loved Me)

_Labored breathing came heavily from both individuals, thinning the air around them. Roy’s hand traveled underneath the back of Jessie's blouse, caressing warm, silky smooth skin before tugging on the clasp of her bra. He then placed his hands on the outsides of her heated thighs, lifting her up so that she could wrap his legs around his waist._

_Jessie pressed her back up against the wall to steady herself as she captured Roy's lips with her own, earning herself an audible groan before he bounced her body up slightly, sucking and nibbling and kissing her neck, her collarbone, and then lower to the swell of her breasts._

82\. My lips weren’t the first lips that Roy’s lips have touched.

**82\. My lips weren’t the first lips that Ed’s lips have touched. But that doesn’t make a kiss any less special. It doesn’t matter when or where or how a kiss is given and who gives it to who. What matters is the intention behind it. The reason why is the only thing that matters.**

83\. He kissed me because he loved me.

**83\. He kissed me because he loved me. Or because he wanted something, which was usually fine, depending on what it was Ed wanted in the first place.**

84\. Roy’s lips are pink. Not too thin. Not too plump. Perfect. Soft. Good at smirking. They hang ever so slightly parted when he sleeps and when he’s reading a particularly interesting book. Or top-shelf magazines.

**84\. Ed’s lips are a ruddy pink, not too thin, not too plump. Good at bending down into a frown and good at curling up into a playful grin. They are bitten and chewed when he thinks no one is watching. They are slightly chapped.**

85\. Roy’s lips are good for commanding armies and heatedly whispering sweet nothings into ears.

**85\. Ed’s lips are good for forming caustic retorts and worshiping the length of his lover’s neck.**

86\. I have a pointy nose. When I’m sitting on his knee, Roy sometimes acts like he's going in for a kiss, and then he quickly nips at the tip of my nose with his lips, drawing back with a small, cheeky smile on his face.

**86\. Jessie has a very pointy nose. But Ed doesn't have to worry. Because I would never nip at her nose. Fullmetal’s nose is the only nose I want to eat.**

87\. Roy was sort of uncomfortable before we shared our first kiss. We were in the park, walking down a gravel path. And Alphonse made it his job to walk directly in between us, watching us like a hawk to make sure that no funny business would go on between us. No touching. No talking about anything but the weather.

**87\. It was was Ed who went around Alphonse and began to walk alongside me.**

88\. Roy hooked his pinkie finger around mine. We walked like that for a while, and then right then and there, just out of the blue, he swung around, cupped my cheeks with his gloved hands, and kissed me on the lips, fast and fleeting, much like he himself as he turned around and ran into the nearby bushes, Alphonse following closely on his heels, shouting bloody murder.

**88\. Ed stood there in a shock for a while, but eventually sprinted after us and tried to call the attack dog off.**

89\. Roy’s kisses are lingering. Controlled. Slow, as if we have all the time on the world and the adventure is just getting started.

**89\. Ed kisses sloppily. Frantically. Desperately. As if this is the end, and there’s no time to waste. At any moment, this dream could become just that and crumble to pieces.**

90\. Roy kisses me passionately. Deeply.

**90\. Ed kisses me passionately. And I find that I lose myself in his kiss, in _him_ , every single time.**

91\. Roy’s home was his sanctuary. But the local park was his sanctuary as well, just as it was when he was a child. Roy sometimes lays a blanket out on the grass in that secluded spot right in the middle of the park where it’s just… t _rees_. Towering trees forming the ceiling of a cathedral come alive, rustling, whispering, casting a dappled shade, patches of light dancing and frolicking about on the ground.

**91\. Ed liked that park. He’d join me there.**

92\. Roy would always be on the right side of the blanket.

**92\. Ed was on the left.**

93\. Roy would pretend to be looking at the sky, but his eyes never left my face.

**93\. His eyes never left my face.**

94\. Roy stayed still with his back against the blanket as I sat up.

**94\. With mesmerizing gold eyes transfixed, he sat with his legs at either side of my waist, straddling me, his mismatched hands upon my chest.**

95\. His shallow breathing intermingled with my own; the singing of the birds and the hush of the wind imitating the quiet, faraway roll of the tide, all but forgotten.

**95\. Fullmetal smiled softly, the look in his sleepy eyes soft as well. He asked me if I was happy.**

96\. And Roy was. It was the most breathtakingly sad happiness I have ever come upon.

**96\. With breathing calm and steady, Ed slowly leaned forward, caressing my chest with the palms of his hands, a small, playful smile touching his face, coupled with half-lidded eyes and followed by a pause as lips lingered over lips, the exchange of oxygen and as the tip of his tongue was gently touched to my top lip the dampness left behind warmed in his absence by the sweet brush of his breath. Mouth closed, a small shadow of a smile breaching for air before he paid my lower lip the same attention.**

97\. Roy’s kisses are lingering. Controlled. Slow as if we have all the time in world. But he can also kiss deeply, desperately, fingers knitting through my hair, a soul deep press of open mouths and tangled tongues, hearts full of want and desire, as if I’m all he needs. He has no need for air, or food, or drink- not as long we’re caught in this moment.

**97\. That was the last time Ed ever kissed me.**

98\. I often wonder if Roy felt it was the last time. As if he has some odd premonition that everything would be ending soon. It felt different when he kissed me that last time.

**98\. Ed can kiss whoever he likes, both now and back then. Because it won’t mean a single thing ever again.**


	14. 222/1000 (Seconds)

_The bubbling amber-colored liquid in the tall glass dripping with perspiration slid quite easily down Ed's throat. The only thing tasted was the subtle hint of caramel and anise, and the only thing felt was the subtle burning at the back of his mouth and the coolness- the sensation tracing its way down to his stomach, as cool as an ice cube against heated skin._

_A shiver._

_Setting the glass down upon the counter-top of the bar, his golden eyes flicked over to the napkin which had been furtively slid over to him while his mind was elsewhere, Felix's initials boldly written along its bottom edge._

99\. In his pant pockets, Roy carries his keys, his watch, loose change, his wallet, and a napkin with somebody's phone number written on it, followed by several x's and o's.

**99\. In his pant pockets, Ed carries a loose screw from his automail, a stick of gum, and his watch. That's it. That's all he can fit.**

100\. Roy carries his gloves in the waistband of his pants. He has a rather scary looking knife hidden in his left boot.

**100\. Ed carries a boot knife as well. Better to be safe than sorry...**

101\. Roy sometimes carries a handgun on a shoulder holster. It makes Miss Hawkeye all hot and bothered.

**101\. Fullmetal never carries a gun.**

102\. Roy can field strip and assemble a rifle in 30.5 seconds. Blindfolded of course.

**102\. Ed can walk into a bar and seduce a colonel that he likes in 30.5 seconds.**

103\. Roy can easily set fire to an entire city block, and its inhabitants, in .68 seconds.

**103\. Ed can casually flip off a light switch in .68 seconds.**

104\. Roy can grab an Ishvalan child from their sobbing mother and then slit their throat in 3 seconds.

**104\. Ed can push a man into bed in 3 seconds.**

105\. Roy can shove a corpse away and thoroughly clean his knife on the fabric of his already bloodied pants in 5 seconds.

**105\. Ed can undress a man in 5 seconds. Kiss him in 1 second. Make him moan into his mouth in .5 seconds.**

106\. Roy can lift his hand and shoot a man between the eyes in .5 seconds. He can break a finger clean in two in a little more than 2 seconds. 2 seconds times 10, and then add a bit more, and if you don't shout and squirm, he can break all of your fingers, one by one in 23 seconds.

**106\. He can make your breathing hot and heavy in 23 seconds.**

107\. With a mallet, he can shatter a kneecap in 1.6 seconds. He can open and Ishvalan's tightly closed lips and have them screaming for mercy in 600 seconds.

**107\. Ed can send your head lolling back and fingernails digging crimson ribbons into the skin at his back in 600 seconds. He can kiss away tears in 7 seconds, hush you quiet in 5 seconds, set a pace in 20 seconds, and have you gasping for air and begging for more in 62 seconds.**

108\. A traitor's fate can be decided in 62 seconds. A human body can burn to ash in about 7,200 or 10,800 seconds. Roy is content with watching his former comrade burn for all 7,200 or 10,800 seconds. He can silently put his hands in his pant pockets and turn away in 2 seconds.

**108\. While making love, he can stick his fingers into your open mouth in 2 seconds. Eat a cry of ecstasy and kiss stars away from your vision in 2 seconds. The body arches against his and shudders in completion 45 seconds after.**

109\. He can slip a Red Stone ring onto his finger and think things over for 45 seconds. He can take out a city block, on a normal day, in .68 seconds. If he stands up on a hill about a quarter mile away from the site, and he doesn't care about the site surrounding or the fact that he might be burned alive or toppled over by the ensuing blast, and doesn't pass out from the physical exertion that it takes to perform on such a large scale, he can turn a small city, and its 27,454 inhabitants, to dust in .3 seconds.

**109\. And he continues on.**

110\. That's why my lover is a colonel. He's... he's a particularly talented man...

**110\. That's why my lover is a lover. He is a particularly talented man.**

111\. He can kill a man in seconds.

**111\. He can love a man in seconds.**


	15. 262/1000 (Red String of Fate)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by the song 'Race To Erase' by Son Lux feat. Faux Fix. This chapter is slightly cheesy.

_The front door was open because he had opened it. And yet, Edward Elric stood frozen there in the threshold, his body a shadowy silhouette against the world of paper white that was once Munich, a cold breeze nipping at his nose and toying with his golden hair as his scarf flapped in the chilled air before him._

_Seeing Felix again was a mistake. One meeting would turn into another, and another, until it all would come came crashing down. His hand still wrapped around the doorknob tethered him to this way of thinking._

_But Ed had to see Felix and throw his love away like it was nothing, just like how he downed drink after drink while Al's head was turned, and when it was not too, because Ed..._

_Because Ed was an alcoholic._

_And because Ed was an addict._

_And he craved a lightness. An air. A lack of weight and meaning... a snowflake going unfelt as it touched already frozen skin._

111\. When he was five, Roy used to catch snowflakes on his tongue. He did it while holding his aunt’s gloved hand as they crossed a plowed street on a winter day. She looked down at him with a frown, because she was raising him to be a gentleman. Gentlemen don’t stick their tongues out in public.

**111\. When Fullmetal was five, his mother bundled he and his brother up and sent them outside to romp around and fall head over heels into snowbanks- head over heels into childhood itself. Poking their heads out of the snow, they’d stick their tongues out and taste the winter in its frozen form.**

112\. Roy put on his little mittens and shoveled sidewalks bit by bit with a plastic shovel that was way too big for him, working behind one of the hostesses from his aunt’s bar. He helped little, but he gave it his all.

**112\. Edward wandered into the dark, snow-blanketed woods, despite his mother’s warnings. Wolves were out there, lurking about like phantoms. Breathing. Listening. Watching... Ed didn’t really know any better, because he was a child, and children tend to think that they have nine lives instead of just the one.**

113\. Roy is not a child anymore. Roy is fifteen years older than I am.

**113\. Ed is not a child anymore. Ed is fifteen years younger than I am.**

114\. It used to bother him. At first, it bothered me too, even after my feelings were realized. You need to touch the idea to the tip of your tongue, let it melt like a snowflake, and see how it tastes. Let it roll off of your tongue like a new word you found at the back of a dictionary. Roy is fifteen years older than I am. That’s it. That’s the truth, and there’s no way around it. And it might not taste good to many people… but it sure tastes good to me.

**114\. Ed told me that it wasn't my fault- being fifteen years older than he was, so why torture ourselves? That coming from Fullmetal could be considered… well a bit hypocritical considering his situation at the time. But he did have a point.**

115\. He told me that he wished he could go back in time and find me sooner. So he could love me longer. It was a rather sweet sentiment, but we soon realized that it kind of had already been done.

**115\. You see, Fullmetal was one year old in the late winter of 1900.**

116\. Roy was born in 1885. Roy was fifteen years old in the late winter of 1900.

**116\. In 1900, Ed was a very proficient crawler. Sometimes he would stand himself up and toddle about the house for a bit.**

117\. In 1900, Roy was sweeping the floors of his aunt’s bar, studying the basics of alchemy, cleaning gutters, hustling pool, and pretending that his life was far grander than it really was. But more interestingly, he was a decent boxer. He’d fight the local boys in shady arenas, where equally shady men would place bets. After a long time, his health had improved.

**117\. In 1900, Ed could scribble with a crayon, or rather, stab at a piece of paper with a crayon and hope that wax was left behind.**

118\. In 1900, Roy threw a fight. He lost the fight because a man offered him a lot of money to do so, and he wanted to buy a nice birthday present for one of the girls at the bar, whom he considered to be like an elder sister to him.

**118\. In 1900, Fullmetal had a limited vocabulary. It must’ve been sort of nice, now that I think about it… Fullmetal with a limited vocabulary…**

119\. In 1900, Roy threw the fight, and got the money, but he also got a bad cut- a nice crimson fish hook curving up from the corner of his lips and over his cheek, ending at his right ear. Madame Christmas threw a fit, because as stated before, she had raised Roy to be a gentleman. And gentlemen don’t cut up pretty faces. A fit from Madame Christmas meant a good slap to the backside of the head and a day or two of silent passive aggression.

**119\. In 1900, a very pregnant Trisha Elric, and a very young Fullmetal, went on a trip to Central to visit a family friend. Trisha packed all of his clothes and nappies into a bag, and took it along with her on the train.**

120\. In 1900, Roy was a bit of a loner. He was shy. And intelligent. But due to this fact, the other boys his age pinned him as being a bit odd. When Madame Christmas threw him out for a while, he kept to himself, wandering the streets with his hands in his pant pockets as his cherry red scarf blew behind him in the breeze like a flag.

**120\. Ed dozed in his mother’s arms, his cheek pressed against her distended stomach as the world passed by.**

121\. In 1900, Roy found himself at the station, seeing if one of the workers there had an odd job for him to do.

**121\. Ed’s mother took great care stepping off of the train and onto the platform. But she stumbled. And Ed almost fell out of her arms.**

122\. In 1900, my mother steadied herself by taking hold of the handrail while Roy practically snatched me up out of the air. Holding me to his chest, his eyes, and my mother’s eyes met. They smiled, and a breathtakingly sad happiness was shared. They must have been very taken by each other, or else how would he have remembered her after so many years? And how would she have remembered him and told me the story?

**122\. She was grateful, and despite my protests, she went off to buy me a hot chocolate from a nearby shop. Meanwhile, I sat on a bench at the station. Fullmetal sat on my knee, and I steadied him by putting my hands beneath his small arms. He was warm… a small sun...**

123\. According to my mother, he was very gentle with me. While she was walking back, she saw him pull my knitted hat farther down so the tips of my ears wouldn’t get cold. He talked to me in a soft, gentle voice.

**123\. And he tried to eat the tassels of my crimson scarf.**

124\. And so he gently pulled the string out of my mouth, snapped off a tiny stray thread, and he… he tied it...

**124\. I tied it around his tiny little ring finger. And my heart swelled within my chest, because after that, he looked up with his large, golden eyes filled with innocence and wonder, and… and he _smiled_ _at me_. A wonderful new life looking up at someone _like me_...**

125\. My mother overheard him talking about the red string on his finger. He told me about the red string of fate, and how it connects people together, like how the cut on his face connected his ear to his lips. The two people connected by the red thread are destined lovers, regardless of place, time, or circumstance- that’s what my mother told me years later. He then wished me luck in finding the person at the end of his own string.

**125\. Ed didn’t see me again for a long time.**

126\. My mother watched, as with his hands tucked into his pant pockets, Roy disappeared into the hustle and bustle of the city streets. In an instant, one became one of many. Just a person. A singularity lost within the white of a snowstorm, leaving questions bubbling up to the surface of the mind as to where they went. Like… like how someone dies. And you wonder where they went, but for Truth’s sake, you’re never gonna get an answer...

**126\. That was in 1900. In 1904, Ed’s mother died.**

127\. In 1908, Roy was sent to hell, placed at the Ishval war front at the very height of the bloody massacre.

**127\. In 1910, Ed came back to me. Or rather, I came back to him.**

128\. In 1914, the snow fell upon Central like a hush upon a crowd. A calm silence, a listening, a reverence, and a peace as the soft light that came with winter blanketed the earth. A cool blue-gray cast drifted in through the frosted windows of Roy’s office where shadows huddled up in the corners. Roy sat next to me on the couch.

**128\. Ed sat next to me on the couch, and with an arm draped over his shoulders, I held him close to me. Something had gone wrong with the heat in the building, and it had shut off for a couple of hours. We sat there in a silence for a very long time.**

129\. I almost expected to see our breath curl and twist in the air before us like a tormented spirit. Like the cigarette smoke which pushed its way past Roy’s lips as he gazed out upon a barren Ishvalan landscape. Or when he was fourteen. And he smoked in dark alleyways because, just as in Ishval, he thought that himself standing right there in that spot… it was all that his future would ever be.

**129\. Your breathing was calm and shallow as it is when the body is adrift, flotsam in the sea of dreaming. Or steady like your stance. So cool, so smart, so above it all, so human, and yet the weight of the world rests on your shoulders.**

130\. We breathed in sweet synchronization. The same rhythm, as did our hearts. Because we are the same. You are the same as I.

**130\. You stayed still.**

131\. You pulled a loose thread from my red coat and carefully tied it around my ring finger. In 1914… in 1914 you looked at me after knotting that string. And there were tears in your eyes.

 **131\. In 1914, I took your hand in mine, warm like a small sun that melts the winter and carries the spring. In 1914... I asked for your hand in marriage in a cold, dark, empty room. And… and it was wrong of me, because... we carry so much. We carry _too much_. ** **And so... how can we possibly carry each other through the storm?**


	16. 290/1000 (The Picture of Youth)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For T. The original Hughes.

_The picture of youth._

_Roy and Jessie once again visited the relic of his bedroom. And in it, Roy gazed upon the picture of youth- long hair splayed out upon the mattress, one arm draped over the stomach while the other lay lazily above the head, fingertips barely grazing the pillows behind. Laughter bubbled up from the throat, light and airy, contagious and dizzying like that one last sip of champagne that's one too many, and yet the beginning of many more._

_But the wonder wasn't there. He'd seen that picture before- it was just in a different frame._

_The picture of youth._

_A specter ambling about the empty halls of an art museum._

 

132\. Roy believes in ghosts.

**132\. Ed doesn't believe in ghosts, but he believes in monsters.**

133\. He doesn't believe in the ghosts that haunt abandoned buildings and old, creepy hospitals. He has some himself. And they haunt the corridors of his memories.

**133\. His monsters are human. I think his ghosts are human as well.**

134\. A ghost visited him in the night. At the moment, it wasn't a ghost, but now... well I suppose that I am in his mind. It was night. It was dark. The moon was out and full and shining, and the sky was a deep, azure blue, just a few shades darker than the blue of his uniform.

**134\. Ed was supposed to be in Youswell. He left early with Al. He snuck away. He climbed in through my bedroom window. He was quiet.**

135\. He was fast asleep.

**135\. He was drifting in that soft, sleepy, drunken plane between sleep and sentiment.**

136\. Roy only stirred when I carefully placed my knee upon the edge of the mattress.

**136\. He wasn't expecting it. I didn't mean it.**

137\. Roy keeps sleeps with a pair of gloves beneath his pillows. I know he didn't mean it.

**137\. He'd seen the gloves there before. He wasn't thinking.**

138\. Roy slipped on his gloves in the blink of an eye and bolted upright in bed, fingers pressed together and ready to snap, but don't get me wrong... he didn't burn me.

**138\. But I could have. Ed could have been burned.**

139\. When he realized that it was me, well, I don't think I'd ever seen him so wrecked. He stood up, and I remember he grabbed my shoulders, and with this... this almost _wild_ look in his eyes, he shook me. He blamed it on me for being so stupid. For putting myself in a position where I could have gotten hurt by him.

**139\. It was wrong of me. But if the situation were reversed, maybe Ed would have reacted in the same way.**

140\. He calmed down. He backed me up against a wall.

**140\. Ed calmly and quietly apologized. It was one of the first times he'd ever apologized to me. He apologized over and over. He hushed me quiet.**

141\. Roy stood still as I gently took hold of the collar of his night shirt.

**141\. He stood up on the tips of his toes. He kissed my cheek. Slowly. Softly. Sweetly. Sometimes... I can still feel it there.**

142\. He kissed the tip of my nose. Slowly. Softly. Sweetly.

**142\. Edward kissed my lips. He took my hand in his and kissed it as well before leading me back to bed.**

143\. We spooned. Roy was the small one.

**143\. Ed was the big one. He held me to his chest and kissed my shoulders before languidly tracing circles on my arms. After a while, I reached back, turned around, and tickled him.**

144\. He knows all my weak points.

**144\. I stopped and Ed laid down on his back- long hair splayed out upon the mattress, one arm draped over the stomach while the other lay lazily above the head, fingertips barely grazing the pillows behind as contagious giggles continued to bubble up from the throat in the tickling's aftermath.**

**The picture of youth.**

145\. He saw the picture of youth- that blissful expression and that blissful feeling in that blissful moment. And after a while, I saw the look in his eyes change with that ache you feel when you realize that you want to stay in that happy place for as long as Truth will allow.

The picture of youth.

This ghost spotted a picture of youth. I was walking home from Felix's place the other night. And I saw the same picture. With a different frame. And a different name.

**145\. I saw Him.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm alive! And I'm adding actual titles to the chapters, because it's getting confusing for me and hard to find things...


	17. 317/1000 (He is With Me)

_That face._

_Edward had seen that face before._

_When he saw the owner of that face cross the street that snowy winter night in Munich, he felt something from within tugging at his heart. Telling him to go. Telling him to run to him before that face disappeared, before the dream would become just that._

_A dream._

_But Ed couldn't move._

_He couldn't move, he couldn't move, he couldn't move. And every loud crunch of snow beneath the man's black boots as he walked away made Ed's heart ache all the more- a strain, and a tug as the invisible string that links one and the owner of their heart together stretched, and became uncomfortably taut, only confirming that the only thing to do was to call out._

_And so he did._

_Edward called out to the owner of the face he had seen before, his voice weaker than intended, his breath twisting in the frigid air before him, fingers trembling within the confines of his heated coat pockets._

_The shivers went away as the owner of the face he had seen before stopped in his tracks, right there under the pale, white light of a street lamp. The owner of the face Ed had seen before- he put his gloved hands into the pockets of his heavy royal blue coat, and walked toward him as snowflakes swirled round on a wind. He stopped in front of Edward, onyx eyes curiously searching gold as he lifted a hand and pulled his red scarf down from over his nose pink with cold._

_And he stayed quiet. Oh so quiet, and oh so still as Edward hesitantly reached up._

_And cupped his face in his hands._

 

146\. I know him. I have seen his face before, and he has seen mine.

**146\. I know him. I've kissed his face a hundred times, no, a thousand times before. I have seen his face. And he has seen mine.**

147\. Roy's face is round.

**147\. Ed's face is round, but not quite as round as mine.**

148\. Roy likes to be clean-shaven, but sometimes, if the week is long and rough, he'll let a thin film of stubble grow across his cheeks and chin.

**148\. Ed likes to be clean-shaven. His face is too young for anything else, and yet his soul is sometimes too old for anything other.**

149\. Roy has dark, raven hair. He gets out of the shower, his hair still damp, towel slung low on waist, and he uses his pale fingers to style his hair in the way that he pleases. He joins me in the bedroom.

**149\. Edward has golden hair. I put on a shirt, I sit on my bed, and I brush his hair for him. I style his hair in the way that he pleases.**

150\. He styles my hair in the way that I please. In return, he receives a kiss.

**150\. In return, he receives a kiss. Long golden bangs hang over the face that I have seen before, and I brush them back as my hand cups his cheek.**

151\. Roy gets crow's feet at the corners of his eyes when he smiles softly at the face he has seen before.

**151\. Ed gets dimples in his cheeks when he smiles softly at the face he has seen before- the face he wants to keep in sight for as long as time will allow.** **But something's different. Something was different on that day because we knew that we had a place we needed to be soon afterward.**

152\. Roy likes to poke my dimples with his fingers when we're alone in bed. Or just when we're alone. 

**152\. He laughs quietly.**

153\. He smiles softly.

**153\. And it is a beautiful thing that I don't... that I don't quite know how to describe with words.**

154\. Roy's nose gets cold sometimes. I take my hand and put it over his nose to warm it up. He smiles again- a small, soft, sad smile. And after a while, I take my hand away, instead letting my forehead press gently against his, because I know that he needs it. He needs it, and I don't quite understand the reason why, but that's alright. That's more than alright.

I know that he needs it, and I know that I need it- that presence, that closeness, that exchange of breath...

**154\. Warmth.**

**Ed's forehead is warm. His hand is warm. His face is warm. His cheeks are warm.** **He is warm because he exists. He is warm because he existed. And yet, he is present. He is here. He is with me.**

155\. He is with me.

**155\. I carry him in my heart. He is with me.**

156\. He is with me. We stand up from the bed, and he dons a black suit, a black tie, and black shoes. He is with me.

**156\. He is with me. He wears a black suit, a black tie, and black shoes. He is with me.**

157\. Roy drives. Quiet. Oh so quiet. But he is with me.

**157\. Ed sits in the passenger seat. Quiet, oh so quiet. And after I park, he and I make the trek up the grassy hill to where my old friend now lies, day in and day out, field of headstones dark shadows against a warm orange sky that comes with the sinking of the sun. Like the winter, and as the night, the end of days.**

**The end of everything.**

**He is with me.**

157\. We mourn side by side. He is with me.

**157\. Ed holds my hand. He is with me.**

158\. Roy holds my hand and says my name like a sweet devotion. He is with me.

**158\. Ed squeezes my hand gently, and I know that he is there. He is with me. He is with me at the end of days, like winter, and as the night, the end of everything. He is with me.**

159\. The Roy in Germany is not the Roy that I love. Roy cannot be in two places at once- there can be no other. Like how Hughes is buried, and yet... he is not there. I carry him in my heart. He is with me. He is here. He is with me... 


	18. 318/1000

**159\. He is gone.**


	19. 319/1000

160\. He is gone.

He has gone gone gone away, and yet I spend these quiet hours at my desk. With my pen in hand, point balanced upon the snowfield of the paper. Chin balanced upon the palm of hand as eyes gaze out the nearby window. The sort of gazing that one does when they're looking out or looking in, as well as the sort of gazing when they're doing neither.

I cast away, and ignore, and deny everything that takes place around me in hope of things going back to the way that they were.

Because they were perfect.

And yet my stomach... Dread twists my insides all up in a knot.

I can't help but wonder if all of this is leading up to something. After all of this, it has to lead up to something, and even if it leads up to a nothing... well, I took so long writing these truths because I'm afraid of the answer that I'll get.

I hold him in my heart. And yet I feel like the cold of winter has made me... just a bit more...


	20. 320/1000

 

 

...numb.

 

 

 

**160\. I hold him in my heart, but when I think of him, my heart tells me that something is missing.**


	21. (Desire)

_Closing his eyes, the Roy who was not Roy gently pressed his frozen cheek into the palm of Edward’s hand, as if it were not into the hand of a stranger, but rather, a comfort. An odd familiarity where there should have been none._

_“Did you love him?” the Roy who was not Roy questioned quietly. “Did you love the man who possess the face that looks like my own?”_

_Edward smiled softly, the sort of smile which arises when something from within, without a name or concrete description, grows and swells with warmth, taking physical form on the face, and touching the heart._

_“Yes,” Edward replied, speaking for the first time in a long while. “Yes, I loved him.”_

_The Roy who was not Roy slowly grinned, his mouth extending wider than was normal- the action strange, and odd, and unnatural. But Edward was not afraid, for he and Truth had met before._

_“Truth…” Edward breathed with almost childlike wonder as he slowly lowered his hand, “I’ve never seen you like this before...”_

_When Truth spoke in the shape of the Roy who was not Roy, his voice was cold- a combination of voices layered one upon the other, echoing through the air, and through the body, and rattling the bones._

_“I am all, and I am one,” Truth said, “And so this also means that I can be anyone I like, even Roy Van Hessler, the Roy Mustang of this world.”_

_The creature cocked its head to the side and spoke in a condescending tone after chuckling lightly with amusement, sending a shiver shooting down Edward’s spine._

_“Tell me... is Roy Mustang the one that you desire?”_

_“I believe I already answered your question,” Edward whispered, looking into the Roy who was not Roy’s familiar onyx eyes. “I love him. He is the one that I carry in my heart.”_

_“But is he the one you desire?” Truth countered jauntily. “It was never a question of whether or not it was love. Because of course it was love! It was love, and it was a chance, or a challenge to be more precise, which if completed would bridge the gap between worlds-”_

_“And reunite me with what I desire,” Edward finished._

_“Not those words exactly, but yes! You would obtain that which you desire, free of any and all consequence.”_

_Edward’s eyes narrowed with confusion. “I don’t… I don’t understand what you’re saying. What do you want from me?”_

_The Roy who was not Roy’s lips closed, forming a thin line as the wind blew the snow around them, the cold seeping into Edward’s skin and reminding him of where he was. It was so cold, and yet the world was so white, and so clean, and so pure, and it only seemed to become more so when Truth smiled a smile of what almost looked like sympathy._

_“Give up,” the Roy who was not Roy said, “Let it go.”_

_Ed swallowed the lump in his throat and shook his head and held back the tears he felt coming with the wrenching of his heart within his chest._

_“After all this time… how could I?” he breathed, his face twisting with pain._

_“After all this time, how couldn’t you?” the Roy who was not Roy questioned gently as the corners of lips turned upward. “Maybe… Fullmetal... you know that it’s over when you are more in love with those silly little truths… with those silly little memories written on the papers on your desk, than with the person who’s standing right in front of you... Don’t you think?”_

_Before he could answer, Edward blinked his eyes. And Truth remained before him, and world of white remained, but the empty, and the quiet, and the calm stretched on forever. Looking for the Gate, he turned around, and as he did, golden eyes went wide._

_Everyone in search of love is alike in that they eagerly await that singular moment. That moment when your eyes open for the first time in a long while- it’s the first time that you see clearly. And your heart tells you that this… This person standing before you is the person you were born to be with. This person you’ve been looking for all this time, however long that time may be._

_This._

_Everyone in search of love awaits this singular moment. And Edward was so blessed, that when he turned around, he was able to experience this momentous occasion for the second time._

_“He is with me.” Roy Mustang breathed, a smile spreading across his face._

_Roy was a couple of feet away, but the space between them was closed in a mere instant. After so long of being apart, that’s all it took for Edward to bridge the gap and leap into Roy’s awaiting arms. Jessie, the alchemist with the platinum blonde hair, stood a few feet behind, looking on with a soft smile upon her rosy lips as Roy and Ed silently wept and embraced each other in the way that only those who love do. Never letting go. So that it may last an eternity._

_“What I would have given to be with you again…” Edward quietly choked. His fingers dug into the fabric of Roy’s coat as he buried his face into the warm crook of Roy’s neck. “I messed up when we were apart…” Ed sobbed softly after a silence, “I made the wrong choices...”_

_An amused smirk tugged at Roy’s lips. “The usual then?” he whispered._

_“Bastard Colonel...” Edward muttered into Roy’s shoulder._

_Roy stood still as Ed suddenly pulled away, and not bothering to wipe the tears away from his flushed cheeks, he took Roy’s warm hands in his._

_“Truth… Truth said that we could be together if that’s what we desire. We can finish writing the truths, and we can be together. That’s what all of this has been about. You and me.”_

_Ed squeezed Roy’s hands reassuringly, pink eyes suddenly bright with expectation. “Come on, Roy. Let’s be together. I love you; let’s be together...”_

_As he wiped tears from his eyes with the back of a hand, Roy’s lips parted, as if he were to say something, only to close them again when he discovered that for the first time in a very long while, he was at a loss for words. He nodded his head once, and then realizing that once was not sufficient in conveying how he felt, he nodded his head over and over, feeling oh so silly, but deliriously young in all the wonderful and joyous ways that a person can be._

_“And that’s a yes?” Ed asked excitedly._

_“It’s an okay,” Roy finally said._

_Edward let go of one of Roy’s hands, and he led the way, guiding them back to the patiently awaiting Truth. One step, and another, and another. But with each step, Edward felt Roy’s hand slipping. At first he didn’t think it was on purpose- maybe Roy was overcome by emotion, and that was why his grip wasn’t as strong as it should have been. But when his hand became empty, and Roy stopped walking, a sickness washed over Edward when he realized that he was wrong. Roy’ was looking over his shoulder, his attention obviously taken by someone else._

_Jessie… Felix… Why did they search out that someone else?_

_That wonderful someone else- that horrible someone else- Edward hated the thought. He hated it. He hated himself. But looking back at Jessie standing there so quietly, with her hands clasped together as if in silent prayer… It wasn’t her fault. And it wasn’t his either._

_Roy turned back to Ed, looking at him so apologetically, and yet something within his eyes told Edward that when he spoke, he spoke nothing but the truth._

_“Ed, I… I can’t leave her,” Roy said gently, “I’m so sorry...”_

_Ed quickly covered his mouth with one hand and doubled over slightly at the waist as the tears start to come again- hot, salty beads collecting against his fingers. But taking a shallow, ragged breath out of his trembling palm, he nodded his head. For he understood many Truths that he wished he didn’t, one of which, in the simplest of terms, is that some things aren’t meant to be, whether or not that being is truly understood._

_“I understand,” Edward choked. “I understand... “_

_Roy reached out with the intent of putting a hand on Edward’s shoulder, but before he could, Edward silently stepped past him, walking toward the woman who stood so still within this world of white, crying so quietly._

_Stopping in front of her, Edward forced a shaky smile, and lifting a hand, he tenderly used his thumb to wipe the tears away from her heated cheeks, and the pair’s glassy, swollen eyes remained locked the entire time, in simple, but beautiful understanding._

_Ed offered Jessie his hand. She took it. And he led her back to her lover. With Jessie’s hand in his, and Roy’s hand in the other, Edward encouraged the couple to hold hands. And they did. And looking at each other, they smiled with a happiness like never before, laughing at the silliness that is tears._

_In that moment, Roy came to realize that her love for him was a gift, and his love for her was a gift as well. Edward had already been open to the joys of this remarkable exchange of gifts, and so he turned to Truth, and with joy written across his tear-streaked face, he made his final request._

_“I know what I desire in the moment that my truths are written!” he announced, his voice hoarse, and cracked, and broken, and ever so strong. “I wish him happiness. I desire happiness,” he said, turning to Roy and Jessie, who held each other in their loving arms,“ I wish you all the happiness that the world has to offer!”_

_Roy quickly kissed the top of Jessie’s head and then gently leaned his own head against hers, and with this tender action, in combination with Ed’s wish for him, he already felt a happiness like no other._

_“Thank you, Fullmetal…” Roy breathed into his lover’s hair, “Thank you…”_

_And Edward said nothing, nothing all. Because his cheeks hurt from smiling so much._

_Truth had long disappeared, but his blackened hand’s rose up from the white and snaked around Ed’s form. They wrapped their icy fingers around his arms and legs and chest, and guided him backward, away from the couple and toward the forgotten Gate, this time so slowly. And gently. As if through this long adventure, Truth had come upon an understanding as well._

_Roy didn’t watch him go. He silently rocked Jessie back and forth in his arms, comforting her because she needed it, and because he was willing to give her all of himself._

_But as Edward felt himself fade and slowly return to the cold of that snowy city street in Munich, he found himself calling out the name of the one he loved, truly and completely._

_“Roy!” he shouted sharply._

_Roy lifted his head, and felt something within him swell at the sound._


	22. 1000/1000

 

 

 

"Goodbye!"


End file.
